It has been a really good week for the B and C teams, with victories on successive nights, away to Olton A and Solihull B respectively. I could write a book about how we ended up with the exact line-ups that turned out, but instead I'll just note that captaincy can sometimes involve more work than is immediately obvious!
Even so, when we arrived in Olton, Rob Reynolds very affably asked me "where are all your players?" His question was both metaphorical and literal. We only had one B team regular (Keatan) and only three players in the building in total (myself and Andy making up the trio.) Unbeknownst to us, Mike's car had broken down and he wasn't going to make it.
So we clearly did not start the game as favourites, but ultimately brought home an excellent 2.5 - 1.5 victory, with a couple of fantastic games along the way (sadly neither of which was mine.) I was the first to finish on Board 4 against Richard Reynolds. As usually happens in our encounters, it was quite drawish throughout. We played down to an endgame, but it always looked like a point that was going to be split.
I would strongly encourage Andy and Keatan to both send their efforts to Mark, for publication in "Game of the Month," as both made for a terrific watch. On Board 3, Andy gave a master class against Richard Liszewski, completely dominating the files with his queens and rooks, and slowly squeezing Richard's forces with exquisite, risk free accuracy. It really was high-class stuff, and this pulled us back to 1.5 - 1.5.
On Board 1, Keatan unleashed a fantastic knight sacrifice against Alan Lloyd, which left Alan completely floored. It was very complicated, with many lines that needed calculating, but Keatan had it more than covered. Faced with Hobson's choice, Alan took the knight and was immediately lost. Hugely impressive on Keatan's part!
That we had won in such circumstances underscored the strength and depth of the B team this year. We have now concluded our campaign as officially the third best team in the competition, which is something we can all be very proud of.
Yet my focus all week (and indeed over the last few months) was on the C team and our Division 2 promotion battle. We went into last night's match top of the table, level on points with Shirley B, but with a game in hand. Up against bottom of the table Solihull, this was our chance to put ourselves two points clear, prior to our final game showdown against Shirley.
Andy was evenly matched ratings wise with Akshath Shivakumar on Board 1, but we had a big ratings advantage on all the other boards. Yet we were determined not to be complacent. We've all seen disasters happen. But this ended up being a reasonably comfortable evening.
Rhys was the first to finish on Board 3, at around 9.00 against Matthew Allen. I didn't see much of this one. It looked like a case of a very smooth workout for Rhys, who did a great job in putting us 1-0 up in pretty routine fashion.
On Board 4, I was playing Pavan Gowda, who threw the kitchen sink at me more or less from his first move. I always felt that his attack was premature. Ultimately, he took some space, but I had the better structure and the better development, and once I was ready to prise things open with a pawn lever, I was absolutely in the ascendency. I won a pawn and then a piece. Pavan had one last attempt to prise my king open but it wasn't sound. I pocketed a rook and was on the brink of winning the queen too, when Pavan called it quits. This was certainly a game when I was always in control, but it was complicated and engaging (and as per usual I got myself in a bit of time trouble, but no matter.) So 2-0
Paul finished next on Board 2, with what might be another contender for Game of the Month. Up against Paul Silverman, our Paul rolled his pawns to brilliant effect, absolutely gripping the board. The final position was very pretty. The pawns controlled everything and Paul S could not prevent Paul B from queening/ winning by some other means. Paul told me afterwards that it had been very enjoyable to play and it certainly looked that way. So 3-0!!
Unfortunately, Andy's game was a painful one. At one point it looked like he was going to win to make it 4-0, but unfortunately something went wrong, and he lost. Not his night, but Andy has been the hero for us on so many occasions, and in the context of the match it did not matter.
So, we host Shirley on Monday week. We are two points ahead and have a superior game point difference, which means Shirley would need to win heavily to overtake us. That said, we aren't going to worry about the maths. We'll just do what we've done all season, and take the game as it comes. Fingers crossed!
